


Mythologies

by sandcities



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Light BDSM, Masturbation, Sexual Tension, as much of it as i can get away with, future kink negotiation, get-together, slytherins as people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 08:16:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17158493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandcities/pseuds/sandcities
Summary: Pansy and Hermione meet again, except this time it's different."I enjoyed the set," Hermione said."Did you now," said Pansy. "This doing something for you?" She continued, moving her hips slightly. Hermione thought, and this was her professional judgement as a former law enforcement official, that leather trousers should be banned. Also crop tops. And tattoos."I-" Hermione started."It wasn't a question," said Pansy.





	Mythologies

**Author's Note:**

> Explanations for Pansy's behaviour will be given.

Hermione met Pansy for the first time in a bar.

Technically, it wasn't their first meeting. That was in first year, when they were eleven years old. Pansy saw Hermione and the words she had grown up hearing echoed in her head and out of her mouth. 

Hermione saw Pansy and thought she was pretty. Back then, of course, that didn't mean she admired her. Hermione understood the world by categorising it, and she knew that there was a category called "mean girl" and it contained girls who looked like Pansy. To be fair, none of Pansy's subsequent behaviour did anything to challenge this categorisation. In fact, it was possible that Pansy had invented the category of "mean girl".

They said Pansy looked like a pug. Back then, of course, that didn't mean she was ugly. It just meant that they didn't like her.

Hermione met Pansy, actually met her, in a lesbian bar in London (not wizarding London, just regular London), and she was already on her second glass of wine. It was a Friday night, in the middle of the hottest June on record, and David Bowie was playing from a vintage record player in the corner. (The place definitely had a strong hipster vibe; the bookshop owner who had told her about it hadn't been exaggerating. Hermione decided she didn't mind; Rebel Rebel was one of her favourite songs, actually.)

Pansy had walked in and Hermione was instantly transported back to being thirteen. She turned around (to hide her face) so fast that she almost got whiplash, but her heart hadn't crashed, it was still speeding down a narrow road at eighty miles per hour. 

Hermione took several steadying breaths, and several more steadying gulps of wine, and reminded herself of several things: (the things formed themselves into a numbered list in her head because things just seemed to do that to her).  
1\. She looked different with her hair up. Pansy probably wouldn't recognise her. The red lipstick was also an effective disguise.  
2\. She wasn't a schoolgirl any more, she was a high ranking government official, and she had dealt with situations far more difficult and diplomatically delicate than seeing her old school bully.  
This unfortunately lead onto 3. Which was that Pansy wasn't a schoolgirl anymore either. She was wearing a leather jacket that hugged her arms in a way that made Hermione's mouth go dry and a dress so short it risked running afoul of public indecency laws and her black bobbed hair was the same as ever and oh god someone was sitting next to her and Hermione didn't want to turn her head but she already knew that it was Pansy. Pansy Parkinson had just sat down at the bar next to her.

"A gin and slimline, please," Pansy said to the bartender, and yes, that was her voice. Exactly the same as it had sounded when she had taunted Hermione mercilessly for six years, and exactly the same as it had sounded when she had tried to give Harry up to the death eaters.

Hermione remembered the trials. Pansy hadn't been a death eater; she hadn't taken the mark (although Hermione thought she could see tendrils of black ink curling over her wrists where the leather jacket rode up her arms as she leant them on the bar).

Pansy had looked so small, standing in the dock. She had kept her head down, answering all the questions and confessing, confessing to being scared, to being terrified, (and to wondering in that one moment whether the life of Harry Potter was really worth more than everyone else's put together, although she didn't say that. That hadn't been the time to debate ethical dilemmas). She had been wearing lipstick, and her hair was tidy, but nothing could hide the dark circles around her eyes.

Pansy had been let off with a caution (after all, she hadn't committed any crimes), and had stayed out of the public eye for the five years since. Mostly.

Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could do this. She wasn't thirteen, she was mature and reasonable, and believed in forgiveness.

She turned to Pansy. "I didn't expect to see you here," she said. 

Pansy slowly turned to look at Hermione, and raised a sharp eyebrow.

"Didn't you? Why would that be?"

Hermione was immediately blindsided by the way Pansy had turned her innocuous attempt at smalltalk into some sort of attack or interrogation. "Um, I-" She stumbled. 

'Surely you knew I was queer. It was all over the papers, last spring, my scandalous lesbian love affair." Pansy drew out the words on her tongue.

Hermione had, in fact, been aware of this. Pansy had been spotted by the paparazzi kissing the deputy minister for magic, a woman called Georgina Wilson, in the back of a car. The papers had gleefully dredged up Pansy's past wrongdoings, such as being in Slytherin, and painted her as a manipulative temptress, a power hungry golddigger looking for innocents to get her perfectly manicured claws into to corrupt. (They did like to mention Pansy's nails).

It had been quite horrible, the way they had gone about making a woman loving another woman seem both dirty and salacious, and it hadn't made coming to terms with her own sexuality any easier for Hermione.

"That wasn't what I-" Hermione looked away. This conversation wasn't going the way she had anticipated. 

"Yeah, yeah," said Pansy. "Anyway, I'm surprised to see you here too. You and Weasley looking to spice things up a bit?"

Hermione flushed red at the implication. "We- Ron and I broke up."

"And what could possibly have caused this splintering of the golden trio and their perfect love lives? Last time I checked, witch weekly was planning your wedding. I was looking forward to it. There was going to be a choir of orphaned schoolchildren." Pansy's voice was like syrup.

Hermione decided to resolutely ignore the way she felt like a fly caught in a web. "We were just too different. We changed a lot, after the war ended. We weren't the same people we were in school."

That was true. They hadn't really had a chance to find themselves when they were supposed to be fighting Voldemort.

"I wonder if your presence here has anything to do with that," Pansy smirked. 

Hermione was bisexual. So was Harry, as it turned out; when she came out to Ron and Harry at the same time she expected to have to explain terminology and debunk stereotypes, but instead Harry had volunteered, "So am I!" It went better than she could ever have hoped for. Now she was trying to get Harry to come along to the queer bookshop she had found- in the muggle world, where they weren't famous- and the events they ran each month.

Hermione was becoming more and more comfortable with her sexuality, mostly thanks to the community she had become a part of. However, she didn't owe her high school bully an explanation of her sexual identity, so she changed the subject. Pansy's smirk demonstrated that she had definitely noticed.

"So what do you get up to these days?" She asked.

"Besides corrupting the ministry of magic by means of seduction?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "Yes. Besides that."

Pansy paused for a moment.

"I'm a writer. Historical fiction, mostly. Oh, and I play in a band."

That was so far from the answer Hermione had been expecting that she had to replay it in her head to check that she had heard properly.

"Does that surprise you?" Pansy asked, raising her eyebrow again, delighting in making Hermione uncomfortable. 

"What? I- no, I just-" Hermione wondered how Pansy was doing this to her. She was the head of the department of international cooperation, for goodness sake. Pansy watched with amusement as Hermione tried to get a grip on herself. 

"So, you write. I haven't seen your name on the shelves," Hermione said.

Pansy gave her a look which seemed to ask, why would you? Who memorises all the authors names in bookshops? To which the answer, of course, would be Hermione Granger.

Pansy decided to humour her. "I use a pseudonym."

"What pseudonym?"

Pansy hesitated. "Viola Park."

"That's a nice name," Hermione commented. "Where does it come from?"

"Where d'you think?" Pansy asked, rolling her eyes. "Surely the brightest witch of her age can figure that one out."

Hermione shuddered at the moniker, before pausing for a moment.

When Hermione was younger, before she went to Hogwarts, her favourite books were The Secret Garden and The Railway Children. (She still had a beautiful cloth bound copy of The Secret Garden, given to her by her parents for her tenth birthday. They didn't remember her now, still. Nobody knew a way to put back vanished memories.)

(A riddle: where do vanished objects go? Answer: into the unbeing, which is to say, everything.)

In those books, the children asked for their own bits of earth to grow things in, so Hermione did too. Fond smiles on their faces, her parents let her have a section of the border in their little suburban garden. Hermione pored over the Suttons Seed Catologue, which came through the door each year, then they went out to the garden centre and Hermione chose her carefully selected packets of seeds. 

She didn't want to wait until they grew to have her flowers, though, so they also bought a little tray of plug-plants. They were yellow Violas, spring bedding plants: like pansies but less showy.

After the flowers had finished, Hermione, lying on her stomach in the grass, stared at the little seed pods as they split open. She never needed to plant any more violas; they self seeded themselves again and again. Which was useful, as all the other plants she had carefully nurtured on the kitchen windowsill and lovingly planted out had been eaten by slugs within a week. She started planting seeds again, just a few years ago, once she got her own kitchen windowsill.

So yes, Hermione did know about violas. She had always preferred them to pansies.

The whole memory washed over her mind in a moment, leaving only a sadness that she had grown accustomed to. She shook herself.

"Ok, ok. Viola like the flower, and Park because it sounds like Parkinson?"

Pansy wasn't surprised Hermione knew the flower; she was always such a know-it-all. 

"Pretty much. Park was also the surname of my great-great uncle." She paused, wondering if Hermione's interests extended to pure-blood genealogy. Probably. "That isn't in the books, by the way."

"Why's that?" Hermione asked, always so earnest, interested.

"He was a muggle. My great-great aunt got disowned, of course. I only found out by accident when I was researching for a book."

Hermione was a little wide-eyed. She was surprised Pansy had taken the name of a muggle for herself. Pansy looked like she knew what Hermione was thinking.

"You aren't the only one who changed," she said, sharp as broken glass.

Pansy continued, as though she hadn't paused, "The thing was, my great great uncle, a Park Jun-ki, was Korean, so they were ostracized in the muggle world for their interracial marriage and ostracized in the wizarding world for being a muggle and a witch."

"That's terrible," said Hermione.

"Lot's of things are," Pansy replied.

"Tell me about it," said Hermione ruefully.

An ABBA song started playing, and Hermione revised her opinion of this bar slightly. She wondered if they were playing it ironically. She wondered if it was even possible to play ABBA ironically.

They talked for a little while longer, Pansy telling Hermione about how she got into writing after she submitted a short story anonymously to Witch Weekly after thinking all the published ones were awful. She had won the 20 galleon prize.

As a child, she had kept a diary, writing down everything that went on around her, and she had kept it up throughout her teenage years. She still wrote it now.

"Some people have these whole imaginary worlds in their heads, they're always making up stories," Pansy had said, slurring slightly. Hermione had thought Pansy must be more drunk than she had thought; Pansy was so controlled. 

"I read something about it, and I asked Millie, and she said she thought everyone did it. I was so jealous! I thought that meant I couldn't be a writer, because I didn't have these stories."

"But you did anyway," Hermione said, swirling the bit of wine left in the bottom of her third glass.

"Yeah. It feels a bit like I'm cheating since I don't make any of it up, I just twist things from real life..."

"Not everyone can do that," Hermione said, a little wistfully. She relied on reality; she never did get along with divination as a subject. Right now, she kind of wanted to twist her life into a story, to gently put away practicality and pragmatism and understand why music sounded the way it did. Which frankly, was a ridiculous sentiment that never deserved to see the light of day.

A little while later, Pansy stood up, a little unsteadily. "Lovely talking to you, Granger, but I must go. Things to see, people to do, you know," she drawled, as though she hadn't just had a long conversation with a girl she used to hate and actually been pretty nice.

Pansy walked over to the dance floor and started dancing, all grace (where did that come from? Wasn't she drunk?) and hips and closed eyes but Hermione couldn't take hers off Pansy.

Except when Hermione came back from the bathroom, Pansy had her hands in some blonde girl's hair, and then they were leaving, and Pansy didn't even look over her shoulder as she left.

***

On her next day off from work, Hermione Granger paid a visit to Flourish and Blotts, in disguise. There existed a magazine coloumn which was either written by an employee of the shop or a very persistent stalker, which took note of every book Hermione bought, or was seen reading, and reviewed and commented on it, while making the kind of reaching statements about her psyche which seemed to characterise wizarding celebrity journalism- Rita Skeeter had left her mark on the genre, and nobody, it seemed, could resist an ironic impersonation of her in their column. Not that Hermione read celebrity gossip.

She'd had fun, for a bit, by charming the covers of her books to look like the strangest or most random books she could think of, such as Outwitting Squirrels ("Are Hermione Granger's friends stealing peanuts from the bird feeder of her life?"), Making the Most of your Motorcycle ("Is Hermione Granger having someone else's midlife crisis?"), and memorably, The Joy of Sex ("All Grown Up"- at this one, Hermione wondered firstly why her job in the department of international cooperation hadn't given them the hint that she was an adult, and secondly, if that was really the best they could do).

She bought a copy of Viola Park's latest book, before heading back home to read it. 

She didn't know what she had expected. Thinking about it, it was ridiculous to expect herself to recognise Pansy Parkinson in the writing style of a historical novel. She had no familiarity with how Pansy's brain worked, who her literary influences were, or what thoughts she had on her mind these days. She didn't know anything about Pansy these days. She didn't back then, either.

It didn't take Hermione long to get lost in the book; it was well paced, clearly well researched, and there was a subtle dry wit that Hermione couldn't get enough of. 

The main plot revolved around fashionable society in 19th century England, and on reading the blurb, Hermione had expected something unoriginal and cliche-filled, perhaps with a love triangle or something. If she didn't have the motivation of knowing Pansy wrote it, Hermione would have put it straight back on the shelf. 

Never had she been more glad that she had disregarded a blurb. The book focused heavily on the characters and the relationships between them, primarily the complex relationship between the heroine and her mother (this made Hermione wonder, given that Pansy had said she took inspiration from real life), and the "forbidden romance" which the summary had focused on served mainly as a backdrop for the characters' development. 

Which was not to say the romance was not given any attention. As the tension built between Marianne and Joseph, it was obvious that there was going to be at least an implied sex scene. Except Hermione somehow felt blindsided, and knew she was blushing heavily, when she reached the first one.

For the first time, she realised how much Pansy had trusted her by sharing her pseudonym (presuming it was her, of course, although something made Hermione feel pretty sure Pansy had told the truth). Perhaps Pansy wanted to be exposed; expected Hermione to tell the press. She didn't seem to mind attention, after all. But she was sure Pansy knew that Hermione wouldn't do that which was why she had put herself in such a vulnerable position.

In more ways than one. 

_"I want you," Marianne whispered._

_Joseph groaned, and his dark gaze pinned Marianne to the wall. He leaned in to kiss her, his tongue curling possessively against hers, as his hands reached around to untie the laces of her bodice. Marianne's hands slid through Joseph's hair._

_This hallway might not have been frequented by servants, but that didn't change how exposed Marianne felt as a draft of cold air caressed her skin and making her shiver as she arched her back, just as Joseph finished undoing the laces of her bodice. In the back of her mind, she was impressed by how quickly and skilfully he had managed it, but the thought was soon lost to sensation as her dress slid down her body, chased by Joseph's lips. She stepped out of her dress so she stood in just her corset and slip. Joseph didn't know yet that she had decided not to wear any drawers._

_As she stepped out of the dress, her eyes fell on the ribbon in Joesph's hands. He was twirling it between his long fingers. She looked up at the same moment as Joseph, and their eyes met. Slowly, feeling more exposed than she ever had before, Marianne raised her hands above her head, pressing her wrists together. She looked up at him through her eyelashes._

_"Please?" She said._

Hermione closed the book with a snap (as much as a paperback could snap, anyway). She felt like every inch of her skin was on fire, and her heart was racing. It felt wrong for her to read this, somehow. It felt wrong that she was so affected by it, and yes, turned on, not just by the content but by the knowledge that Pansy had written it.

But who was she to be scared of a book? By telling Hermione her pseudonym, Pansy had practically asked Hermione to read her writing. Maybe even dared her to. She slowly opened the book again, and read on. 

***

And it felt wrong, but Hermione still replayed those scenes in her head that night, as she lay on top of her duvet.

Even though it was 11pm, the temperature was still in the high twenties outside; Hermione had an air conditioning charm but it didn't remove the uncomfortable sensation of close, heavy air.

The blinds were drawn and the lights were off, and Hermione's eyes were closed as she slipped her right hand between her legs. She thought of Joseph and Marianne from the book, except the image in her mind morphed into two women, and one of them looked like Pansy, small and pale, with black bobbed hair and a smirk like she could kill somebody.

Hermione closed the fingers of her left hand around her throat, imagining someone else's fingers and relishing the way her head felt light and her skin burned. It had been a long time since she had last felt this compelled to masturbate; she had done it a couple of times in the past few weeks, in attempts to clear her head before going to sleep, but it had been unsatisfying - she didn't even come, the last time.

That wasn't going to be an issue tonight. She reached blindly for the drawer in her bedside table and found her vibrator, quickly clicking it onto the highest setting, then pressing it against her clitoris. Her back arched involuntarily. She moved her left hand back to her throat, and used her right to pinch her nipples sharply. 

In her mind, the character resembling Pansy had tied the other to a large, regency-style bed, and as Hermione came, harder than she could remember coming in a long time, she registered that the other character looked a lot like her.

 _Shit,_ she thought, as she got up to wash her hands and have a pee (she would clean the vibrator tomorrow). It would be awkward if she saw Pansy again.

***

Since she and Ron broke up, Hermione had spent a lot of time going to places by herself, trying to work out who she was when she was alone. For an only child, she thought, she had grown remarkably codependent.

Two weeks after she had met Pansy, Hermione was once again sitting alone in a bar; this one was an old-fashioned style pub in a modern area of London and a poster outside said there would be live music at nine from a group called Band of Snakes. She was here because someone at the queer crochet circle Hermione attended at the bookshop had mentioned that there was good live music, and Hermione wanted something to distract herself.

For the last two weeks, Hermione had been unable to get Pansy out of her head. She had found herself unable to stop searching newspapers for Pansy's name, even when every mention felt like something between a sign from above and a punch to the gut. She read Viola Park's reviews, hungry for any information that could give her an insight into Pansy's mind.

And Hermione considered herself a reasonably self-aware young woman, so she was absolutely cognizant of what she was doing; she resolved never to make fun of Harry again about his behaviour in sixth year. (The three of them affectionately took the piss out of each other a lot these days; if you couldn't laugh, what could you do?)

Still, when Pansy walked onto the small stage area of the pub at ten past nine, a bass guitar slung over her hips and wearing a black crop top which bared her tattoo-sleeved arms and what looked like leather trousers, Hermione's sudden inability to breathe properly took her by surprise.

Hermione knew the moment Pansy saw her because of the way her eyes widened slightly too much for it to be coincidental. Hermione took a ridiculous amount of pleasure from raising an eyebrow and smirking slightly, even though she knew if Pansy had seen her first rather than vice versa she would be looking far more foolish. She wasn't sure she pulled it off. 

Hermione's usual clothing could best be described as "practical officewear", and by that she meant sharp trouser suits with more and larger pockets than they should logically have. Also, since apparently important wizards could wear such items without being mocked, capes. (Hermione still felt a little silly wearing a cape to the office, but even the magazine columns, which in one of the most surreal aspects of her life so far considered her a style icon, only had good things to say about the capes, which was more than could be said about most things she did). 

Off duty, however, Hermione had a preference for knitted jumpers and, if she was dressing up, long skirts, so that, paired with her favourite red lipstick, was what Hermione was wearing tonight. She only hoped her outfit could make up for her personal complete lack of suave-ness.

Pansy pretty much ignored Hermione for the entirety of the hour and a half long set, but Hermione still kept wondering whether the little bits where the band members spoke between the songs could possibly be interpreted as directed at her. Pansy closed her eyes when she played guitar and Hermione noticed she had a freckle on her eyelid.

After spending an embarrassingly long time psyching herself up for it, when the band finished their last song, Hermione casually wandered over to them. The lead singer, who also played main guitar, was first to notice Hermione.

"Hey," she said. "You here for Pansy?" The woman raised her eyebrows in a suggestive expression.

"What, no, I-" Hermione stuttered, and the woman grinned.

"Relax, it's fine. Anyway, anyone could see you couldn't take your eyes off her." The woman laughed loudly. "I'm Jess, nice to meet you," she said, and then, without giving Hermione a chance to reply, yelled, "Oi, Pansy!"

Then Pansy was there. Jess thumped her shoulder in what was probably a brotherly sort of way, before winking exaggeratedly and walking off, whistling.

"I enjoyed the set," Hermione said, so neither of them had to mention Jess.

"Did you now," said Pansy. "This doing something for you?" She continued, moving her hips slightly. Hermione thought, and this was her professional judgement as a former law enforcement official, that leather trousers should be banned. Also crop tops. And tattoos.

"I-" Hermione started.

"It wasn't a question," said Pansy, almost dismissively. "So, did you enjoy my book?"

"How do you- Oh, I was so sure they hadn't seen me this time, I was so careful..."

"What are you talking about?" Pansy asked in confusion.

"Well, you knew I'd read the book, so I assumed it was in the paper or something..." 

Pansy rolled her eyes. "I'm going to let you into a little secret, ok? I didn't actually know you read the book. I just assumed you would, and I assumed right, it seems. Anyway, why would it be in the paper?"

"Well, there's this column- you know what, nevermind." Hermione suddenly did not have any of the energy that would be required to explain her relationship with the wizarding press.

"So what was your favourite bit?" Pansy asked. "Of the book?" She prompted, when Hermione didn't immediately answer. 

"Oh, um, I liked the way you explored the characters and their- relationships," Hermione replied, stuttering slightly over the word "relationships". For some reason, it felt like a dangerous word.

"Any relationships in particular?"

"Um, Marianne and her mother's," said Hermione quickly, balking at Pansy's suggestive eyebrow.

"You're blushing," Pansy remarked, as if discussing the weather.

Hermione took a risk and looked up from her hands, where she was worrying a hangnail. Pansy's gaze was magnetic. Hermione still didn't know why Pansy had talked to her that night. Didn't know what she wanted with her. She knew this was a mistake. But right now it was a mistake that some part of her- an overriding part of her, in that moment- wanted to make.

"Can I buy you a drink?" Hermione asked.

Pansy's grin was cat-like. "A gin and slimline, if you please."

***

It was 11.30 at night, and Hermione Granger was sitting next to Pansy Parkinson on a picnic table in a park in London, and they were drinking vodka mixed with cranberry juice. They were drinking from the glasses they'd had in the pub, which they'd left some time ago. Drinks weren't getting any cheaper.

"I'm sorry," said Hermione. "For- school." Hermione was a firm believer in the principle that the best way to get someone to apologise was to apologise first; this had the added benefit of if not clearing her conscience, at least surveying the mess, determining what it consists of, and putting some pens back in the pen pot. (As a side note, one of Hermione's proudest achievements was introducing the DfIC to biros; wizards habitually avoided all muggle technology due to the very real possibility of electricity reacting disastrously with magic, thereby overlooking purely mechanical inventions). Pansy probably wouldn't take the bait; she usually didn't respond to cues in the expected way. Hermione found that she actually quite enjoyed this tendency, so she wasn't really disappointed with Pansy's reply.

"For 'school'? Bold of you to take responsibility for the whole education system."

"You know what I mean."

"What is it thar you're apologizing for?"

"Well, everything, really. You know. We were supposed to be- we just. Weren't that nice."

"You were supposed to be the good guys? Is that what you were going to say? The good guys, who never say anything back to their bullies, who always, ah, what's the phrase, turn the other cheek?" Pansy paused to raise a sardonic eyebrow.

From the set in Pansy's face, Hermione could tell what she was about to say wasn't anything new. It might well be a speech she'd given a thousand times, to a thousand people. But tonight it was new. And it seemed that alcohol did nothing to affect Pansy's lexical access. A born speaker.

"And we were the bad guys, because we were in Slytherin. Because we were 'ambitious', although I maintain that wasn't really one of the sorting criteria. I mean, Crabbe and Goyle were loyal and not much else, by all rights they should have been in Hufflepuff. No, ambition isn't what they look for. What they look for is something I call 'not-nice'. That's what really united us; they twisted that into 'ambition' so it sounded more like it could be a virtue, more like they weren't condemning a quarter of all the eleven-year-old wizards to the 'bad guys'.

"And what they missed when they were changing the name of 'not-nice' so it sounded more palatable, was that their new words would just come to mean evil as well, and they still saw us the exact same way: evil. Beyond redemption.

"Not-nice doesn't have to be a bad thing, just as bravery can be reckless, loyalty can be obsequious, and wit and learning can be elitist and cruel. I'm not nice, and that means I stand up for myself, sleep with who I want, and can't be arsed to worry what people think of me. 

"If the worst things you can call a woman are bitch, slut, and ugly, then I'm all three and I fucking love it." Pansy downed the rest of her drink, and slammed the glass down onto the table, looking at Hermione challengingly. Hermione was just grateful that her flustered blush didn't show up on her dark skin.

"You're not ugly," was all Hermione could think to say.

"You know, that's not the point, and I know you know that, because I know you aren't an idiot. But here's the thing. Ugliness can't exist alone; it needs someone to name it in order to exist. And to receive a judgement of 'pretty' or 'ugly' is to accept that your body belongs to everyone who looks at it, and pretty means they want you but ugly means they don't. You can't own pretty. It always belongs to someone else. You can try, give yourself away on your own terms, but it's still giving yourself away. Ugly, though, that's mine. If people think I'm worthless because they don't want to fuck me, then I'm gonna wear 'worthless' like a fucking crown for all the kids that got told they'd never amount to anything then insulted them by calling it ambition. I don't need anyone else to exist."

Pansy took a deep breath and sighed, staring at the bottom of her glass. "I'm getting incoherent. The next stage is I tell people what I think with no filter at all, and then I pass out. I need to go home," Pansy mumbled.

"Let me take you home," Hermione said. "Tell me your address and I'll call you a taxi."

"No, come home with me," said Pansy. That was the last thing she said before she, true to her word, passed out.

Hermione allowed herself 5 seconds to breathe deeply (initially she closed her eyes, but the spinning in her head made that unsustainable, so she opened them) and wonder why this situation had to happen to her.

Then, she took Pansy's bag from her hand, and looked through it, hoping to find something useful. 

Her fingers closed around the familiar cool rectangle of a smartphone. Odd. Hermione hadn't seen her use it. But then again, she associated with muggles now. She pressed the power button and the screen lit up. Effortfully, Hermione focused on the screen. She wondered what passcode Pansy would use. Maybe she would have her phone unlock by tracing a pattern on those dots. When was Pansy's birthday? Hermione had no idea. She didn't even know if Pansy was older or younger than she was. Probably younger, since Hermione had a September birthday. But that was no guarantee. Anyway. The phone. She touched the screen, and it did a little bouncing motion, as if to suggest upward movement. Hermione swiped her finger upwards along the screen. The phone unlocked.

It didn't look like Pansy's phone embodied her as a person. The background was the default blue gradient, and the apps were still organised in the odd way that they are when you first get a new phone. Hermione opened the contacts, guiltily glancing at the unconscious Pansy. There was a mix of first names and nicknames, some with pictures and some without, but none jumped out to Hermione as being immediately useful in this particular situation. Until- DOORMAN BARRY. LEGEND. 

Pansy had a doorman (of course she did). Hermione took a deep breath and pressed _call_. 

***

"So nice..." Pansy said, her eyes half-closed. "Where's your not-nice? Or are you not real?"

Hermione thought of longing, of an ache in her chest, of Ron, and of pain slicing into her skin. Of a family she would never get back, of a crying girl with "sneak" written across her forehead. 

"Maybe I'll tell you some time," she said.


End file.
